How biking or walking or running or sitting in one placecan have the kind of magic that lures and pulls you back to another time, another place, another person— a glimmer of Orion’s belt, the snap of a wine cork, a faint whiff of toasted hazelnut.

In French and Creole cultures, this kind of remembrance encapsulates the magic of déjà-vu— the sense that what you areexperiencing au présent, you have already experienced au passé.

The sense that you are living in this shadowy yet glimmering place between past and present.

If you’re here, meandering or sprinting or sleeping amidst these trees, hopefully you find the same sense of calm, the same sense of respite, the same sense of connection I found here, everyday, for four years.

I still come back, once every few years, tracing my fingers over the Heart Trees, feeling my legs tense up at the sight of Rocking Chair Hill, sensing myself calm down seeing the waves of buttercups laughing and bobbing in the breeze of the Back Jump Field.

Not the place you go to when you get in a car and drive to work or where you end up at the end of the day or where you wake up in the morning– but your place— where you go to feel like the fullest and the best version of yourself.